


where there is love, there is life

by akaparalian



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood & Manga
Genre: Family, Gen, Remix
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-10
Updated: 2017-09-10
Packaged: 2018-12-26 07:39:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,174
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12054378
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/akaparalian/pseuds/akaparalian
Summary: The first and perhaps greatest person to ever love Tim Marcoh. Or, the "Hearts Have a Past that Must be Reckoned" remix.





	where there is love, there is life

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Suzume](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Suzume/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Hearts Have a Past that Must be Reckoned](https://archiveofourown.org/works/469148) by [Suzume](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Suzume/pseuds/Suzume). 



> I had a ton of fun with this. I found the impression of Dr. Marcoh's mother in "Hearts Have a Past [...]" really interesting -- almost as interesting as I found the fact that she isn't really ever mentioned again (and we certainly don't see her in canon). Hope you like it, Suzume!

She was twenty-two years old when she stopped being ‘Emily’ and started being ‘Mama.’ 

Of course, she had been ‘E. R. Marcoh’ for a while, because that sold better on a byline than Emily Rose. And since long before that, she’d been ‘Em’ to her sister and ‘sweetheart’ to her father (her mother, more pragmatic, had only ever called her Emily). But this was different  — this was giving her own name up completely, leaving behind her entire identity for something new, alone except for the tiny, writhing mass in her arms.

She named him Tim, because her father’s name had been Tom  — Thomas  — but he had always made her promise never to name her sons after him. Getting close, but not too close, just skating along the line of her word— that was the kind of thing that she found funny, the kind of thing that made her smile when the midwife handed her her child and left, leaving her apartment suddenly and totally empty. 

Her sister had offered to be here, but Emily hadn’t gotten the impression she was completely serious about it; it was a long way to come, anyway. And her parents were long past. And Tim’s father  — well, she didn’t particularly want to think about him, much less talk about him.

So it was just her and the baby. 

The first week, it was all she could do to keep the both of them fed and washed. Tim cried on and off; the days faded into each other with little sleep to mark the divides between them. It seemed that every time she would sit down, he would start fussing, and she’d be back on her feet, walking endless circles around her apartment until her son stopped wailing and started snuffling quietly on her shoulder.

It took months before she had the chance to get any work done, and by the time she finally sat at her desk again, it felt almost foreign to grip the pen between her fingers. What had once been fluid — something she could do almost without even thinking  — felt different, now, as though every aspect of her had changed on some level or another.

She looked across the room at her son: sleeping, for once, curled up in his cradle with one little hand resting against his cheek. It was strange to think she had given up weeks and weeks of her life for this little creature  — and, of course, almost a year before that, which had been filled with nausea, aches, and exhaustion, and no one to share the burden with her. Perhaps she should have felt bitter, she thought, as she looked across the room at her child. Perhaps she’d earned the right. 

Emily set down her pen and moved across the room, as quietly as she could manage, to gaze down into the cradle. Tim shifted slightly in his sleep and made a soft, quiet sound, and she only realized she was smiling when the expression slowly slipped from her face. She was a writer  — creation was her line of work and her comfort, day in and day out, and it had been since she was a child. But as she looked down at her son, she knew she would never create anything better, not even if she wrote until the end of time.

When she sat back down, the pen seemed lighter, and she began to write in smooth, fluid movements, letting the rhythmic scratching of the nib on paper lull her son into deeper sleep. 

 

—

 

It is barely weeks after her fortieth birthday when she stands on her front porch and watches her son walk down the gravel path in front of their house for what she fears, in some hidden corner of her mind, will be the last time.

She bought this house when Tim was still small; he barely remembers the old apartment. This house had allowed her an office all to herself, rather than a desk in the corner of her bedroom, and a yard for the dog, and plenty of room for her son to play and run and grow. Now, as he walks away from her, down the street toward the train station, it feels enormous and empty behind her, like when she goes back inside it will swallow her whole.

Tim had asked if she wanted to go to the train station with him, to see him off there; the thought alone almost made her beg him not to leave, to stay here in town with her rather than going off to university. Bidding her only child farewell as his train rolled out of the station, her handkerchief waving in the wind — it would be too much. At home, at least, she could control the situation, and do it out of the view of dozens of strangers. 

That line of thinking seems almost silly to her now.

When he finally turns the corner and disappears from her view, she sags heavily against the doorframe and lets out a long, slow breath. It’s barely autumn; the wind is just starting to grow crisp and cool, and she lets it blow her hair around her face as she stands there. Tim will write her within hours of arriving at university, she knows; he’s always been conscientious, and caring, and kind. She worries sometimes that she might have disadvantaged him by giving him a fatherless childhood, but she thinks now about the man her son has become, smiling faintly, and thinks there’s nothing she could have done to make him turn out any better than he has.

She finally turns to go inside, shutting the door behind her with a soft click. She walks slowly from the entryway to the kitchen; Tim’s dog Sammy, her muzzle long since gone gray, wags half-heartedly at her from the basket in the corner. The university, of course, doesn’t allow dogs in the dormitories, so Sammy too is staying behind. 

For the first time in over two decades, she stands in her kitchen not only alone, but with the knowledge that Tim won’t be coming home in a few hours or a few days or even a few weeks. It will be months, at minimum, before he returns; it’s simply not worth the train ride to come visit for the weekend, so their only chance will be between semesters. 

She has an article to write; the deadline’s coming up in just a few days, and she’s only just started. She’d better start dinner soon if she wants to eat. There’s laundry to do and dishes still left to wash from breakfast. But Emily Marcoh pushes all of those things to the back of her mind and instead leans against the kitchen counter; she thinks of the day her son was born, the weeks it took for her to learn to love him unconditionally, and the months and years of her life that she’s given over to him. Then slowly, suddenly, she realizes that things will never again be quite the same.


End file.
